Yan Wei, Wang Yuling, Jiang Zhongxin, Peng Kaiping, Cohen Geoffrey
School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
Stanford Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, CA, USA.
Appl Psychol Health Well Being. 2024 Aug;16(3):1100-1121. doi: 10.1111/aphw.12516. Epub 2023 Dec 28.
The COVID-19 pandemic, characterized by its highly contagious nature and devastating death toll, posed a dual threat to both physical and psychological well-being. As a potential intervention to alleviate the psychological impact, values-affirmation involves individuals engaging in the activity of writing about their core values. While its effectiveness in non-WEIRD (i.e. Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) populations, notably among Chinese adults, has been confirmed, it remains largely unexplored whether the intervention can promote mental health in Chinese adolescents, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study thus is to provide the first empirical evaluation of this intervention in promoting well-being and alleviating psychological distress among Chinese adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 2,234 students from 112 secondary schools in China were randomly assigned to an affirmation or control condition. The study found that self-affirmation intervention improved students' life satisfaction, mental health, and self-esteem, as well as buffered a decline of their purpose in life; however, no effects were found for clinical measures of depression, anxiety, and loneliness. The results suggest that self-affirmation interventions, while having limited effects on clinically relevant outcomes, can be an effective approach to boost well-being in adolescents during a major crisis, including in a more historically collectivist culture. Implications for self-affirmation theory and cultural psychology, as well as avenues for future research, are discussed.
新冠疫情以其高度传染性和惊人的死亡人数为特征，对身心健康构成了双重威胁。作为缓解心理影响的一种潜在干预措施，价值观肯定疗法让个体参与书写自己核心价值观的活动。虽然其在非西方、受过教育、工业化、富裕、民主（WEIRD）人群，尤其是中国成年人中的有效性已得到证实，但该干预措施能否促进中国青少年的心理健康，特别是在新冠疫情背景下，在很大程度上仍未得到探索。因此，本研究的目的是首次对该干预措施在促进新冠疫情期间中国青少年的幸福感和缓解心理困扰方面进行实证评估。来自中国112所中学的2234名学生被随机分配到肯定组或对照组。研究发现，自我肯定干预提高了学生的生活满意度、心理健康和自尊，并缓冲了他们生活目标的下降；然而，在抑郁、焦虑和孤独的临床测量方面未发现效果。结果表明，自我肯定干预虽然对临床相关结果的影响有限，但在重大危机期间，包括在更具历史集体主义文化背景下，可能是促进青少年幸福感的有效方法。本文讨论了对自我肯定理论和文化心理学的启示以及未来研究的方向。
